Sunday, May 26th, 2013

The sun was shining out at Avila on Sunday but the water was very cold. With Niel on the road we didn't have an official temperature but the Port San Luis Buoy was reading 52 while we were in the water. Thanks to a mix of big crowds for the holiday and the Blues Fest as well as some questions as to how clean the water was we didn't have too many swimmers in the water. Susan and Brad swam the left side of the buoy line first while Dave VM and I thought about it... ultimately we got in and swam two laps of the left side. While we were out the wind kept building and building making for a very burly swim.

After swimming Susan and her friend went off to the concert across the way and Brad took off as well. Dave and I stayed on the beach enjoying the sunshine for a couple hours while trying to determine what we might be able to sell our parking spots for on the way out of town :)

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Going further back in time to Friday, we had a good crowd out at the lake which is probably up to about 65 degrees now. For the first time the skins outnumbered the wetsuits. Byron, Brad, Dave VM, Rob, went skins and Loch and Penny wore suits. Allison paddled her kayak alongside us. Kim and two of her friends hit the water about 20 minutes later and the three of them went without wetsuits as well.

The main group swam to the point on the right side of Mallard cove. Dave, Byron, Loch and Brad split off to swim to the buoy and then to the right towards a patch of beach we use a lot. Boat traffic killed that plan and they turned early instead of hitting the buoy. Penny and I made our way towards the beach direct without the buoy detour. We stopped about 2/3 of the way there because she had some bad leg cramping. She ended up hopping out and walking back and I rejoined the main pod. Back at the entry point to Mallard cove we caught up with Kim and her friends. We all swam to the far side of the cove and then back in towards the parking lot. In the middle of this a boater got way too close at way too high of a speed. Allison exchanged some words and hand signals on our behalf :) Hopefully next week is back to normal as far as motorized lake traffic goes!

Rob D.